The detention of the military advocate general, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, raises questions about the rule of law in Israel. Photograph: Oren Ben Hakoon/AP

Police in Israel have arrested and detained the military’s top legal officer after she admitted leaking footage of soldiers allegedly attacking a Palestinian detainee and then in effect lying about her actions to Israel’s high court.

The military advocate general, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, said in a resignation letter last week that she had authorised publication of the video to defuse attacks on military investigators and prosecutors working on the case.

Rightwing politicians and pundits championed soldiers detained over the case as “heroes”, attacked military investigators as traitors, and called for the case against the soldiers to be dropped.

Tomer-Yerushalmi has now been arrested on suspicion of fraud and breach of trust, abuse of office, obstruction of justice, and disclosure of official information by a public servant, Israeli media reported.

Her arrest and detention raises serious questions about the rule of law in Israel, accountability for abuse and killing of Palestinians during what a UN commission has called a genocidal war, and the country’s ability to defend itself in international courts.

In July 2024 prosecutors raided the Sde Teiman military detention centre, which has become notorious for torture, and detained 11 soldiers for interrogation.

They were suspects in a violent assault on a Palestinian from Gaza, including anal rape. The victim was hospitalised with injuries including broken ribs, a punctured lung and rectal damage, according to the indictment, and Tomer-Yerushalmi launched an investigation.

The government and far-right politicians and pundits have accused her of damaging Israel’s global standing by pursing the case and releasing the video, in effect casting her efforts to prosecute extreme violence as a project to undermine the state.

“The incident in Sde Teiman caused immense damage to the image of the state of Israel and the IDF [Israel Defense Forces],” the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement on Sunday. “This is perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the state of Israel has experienced since its establishment.”

After the first detentions of soldiers in the case in summer 2024, a far-right mob gathered outside Sde Teiman calling for the investigation to be dropped. Some of the protesters – including a minister and two members of the Knesset – broke into the base.

Tomer-Yerushalmi leaked the video in August 2024 after the protests, saying in her resignation letter that it was “an attempt to debunk false propaganda against army law enforcement bodies”.

Days later, five soldiers were charged with aggravated abuse and causing serious bodily harm. They have not been named and are currently not in custody or under any legal restrictions, Israeli media reported.

Tomer-Yerushalemi subsequently refused to open or advance investigations into other cases of possible war crimes by the Israeli military, because of the pressure of public attacks over the case, Haaretz reported.

There has been only one conviction of an Israeli soldier for assaulting Palestinians in detention during the war, although widespread torture and abuse have been documented in Israel’s jail system, and dozens of Palestinians have died in captivity.

No soldiers have been charged for killing civilians in Gaza, even after high-profile attacks that prompted international outrage, including the killing of paramedics and strikes on a team from the World Central Kitchen charity. Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been killed in attacks and airstrikes over two years.

Attacks on Tomer-Yerushalemi over the Sde Teiman affair intensified in recent days amid reports that she was responsible for leaking the video. There were official demands for her to step down and personal threats online, even after she announced her resignation.

The campaign briefly halted on Sunday afternoon amid fears for her life, after her partner reported her missing to the police and her car was found empty at a beach in the Tel Aviv area with a note inside, Israeli media reported.

Then she was found, and within minutes the attacks resumed. The far-right commentator Yinon Magal posted on X, “we can proceed with the lynching”, adding a winking emoji.

Soon after, protesters had gathered outside her house, Israeli media reported, shouting slogans including “we will give you no peace”. The defence minister, Israel Katz, later accused her of “spreading blood libels”.

Traditionally Israel’s government and military have considered the existence of an independent judiciary a crucial barrier to international legal tribunals investigating Israel for alleged abuses against Palestinians.

Where there is a robust national legal system willing and able to investigate and prosecute crimes, international courts are less likely to have jurisdiction to intervene.

“Don’t they understand we had no choice? That the only way to address the wave of international legal proceedings is by proving we can investigate ourselves?” the investigative reporter Ronen Bergman quoted the advocate general telling colleagues six weeks ago, in a report for Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

In recent decades many Israelis have seen the role of the military advocate general “as protecting soldiers from prosecution abroad”, said Prof Yagil Levy, head of the Institute for the Study of Civil-Military Relations at Israel’s Open University.

“In other words, the law is not upheld as a value in itself, but as a defence against international tribunals.”

Now even such legal pragmatism is under attack by the political right, whose influence can be seen in the lack of legal accountability for soldiers’ conduct in Gaza over the past two years, Levy added.

“During the war, the advocate general gave the army a free hand in Gaza, for example, regarding the unprecedented collateral damage from airstrikes,” he said.

“This reflects a far weaker commitment to international law, with some on the right claiming that Israel is exempt from respecting it, and even providing religious justifications for this view.”

Emma Graham-Harrison in Jerusalem